WATER FORWARD
results are measured, aggregated and compared across increasingly integrated portfolios. As MDBs and development finance institutions scale up investments under the global Water Mission - spanning Water for People, Water for Food and Water for Planet - the credibility of targets depends not only on financing volumes, but on the internal consistency, transparency and analytical integrity of results measurement systems. The Water for People pillar illustrates the persistent tension between access measurement and welfare outcomes. While access-based metrics support attribution and comparability, they require explicit safeguards to prevent bias toward low quality or unsustainable services. Reporting aggregate access figures alongside tiered service levels, applying tier-sensitive costing logic and enforcing context-specific conversion factors are essential to ensure that scale is not achieved at the expense of adequacy, safety or sustainability. For Water for Planet interventions, credible accounting depends on agreed spatial models, explicit hazard reduction criteria and careful geographic ring fencing of populations whose exposure or vulnerability is demonstrably reduced. Across all pillars, there is a high risk of double counting, particularly in joint, multi-pillar and co-financed operations. The same goes for elements of calculation and estimation including the conversion factors that should remain normative and rely on agreed principles for definitions grounded in local demographic data, verified catchment populations and demonstrated service functionality. The effective harmonization must be principle-based to agree on theories of change on pillars, intervention-specific beneficiary definitions, attribution discipline, identification of project- induced effects and techniques to avoid inflation of results; transparency of assumptions, spatial boundaries, probability thresholds and conversion logics where all are context-linked.
Same Water Supply Project, Tanzania Completed January 2025 Financing US$35.8 MN • US$12 million OPEC Fund • US$10 million Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) • US$13.8 million Government
In contrast, Water for Food interventions operate primarily through productive assets and livelihoods, not generalized population access. Here, the farming household is the analytically correct unit of analysis, reflecting how irrigation affects income, risk and productivity. Converting irrigated water volumes or hectares mechanically into population equivalents might obscure causal pathways and risks overstating impact. Water for Planet interventions present a qualitatively different challenge. These interventions target public goods and natural capital, where benefits are diffuse, intergenerational, and often non- excludable. MDBs therefore prioritize biophysical and systemic indicators such as ecosystems preserved, environmental flows restored or risks reduced over direct beneficiary counts. Where beneficiary figures are reported, they are treated explicitly as proxy indicators of reduced risk exposure, not service delivery. Improving development effectiveness Results Project supplies water to around 40 villages, including 17 villages in Mwanga, 16 in Same and 5 in Korogwe and also covers several small towns in these districts. Impact Supply of drinking water to around 450,000 people, significantly improving access to safe water, helping reduce waterborne diseases and easing the burden on households.
Regional distribution of OPEC Fund water security projects
1 (3%)
6 (14%)
8 (19%)
27 (64%)
Total water security projects: 42
Africa
Latin America & Caribbean
Asia
in the water sector requires a fundamental rethinking of how
Europe
16
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